


Let Us Halve Our Burdens

by tmariea (OccasionalArtist)



Series: Between the Lines [2]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Scars, blood mention, wounds mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-10
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-30 04:20:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8518255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalArtist/pseuds/tmariea
Summary: Sorey's loss of resonance at Glaivend Basin took a heavy toll on both himself and Mikleo.  They still have hurts and fears to work through, and that's something best done together.*Descriptions of violence are not as graphic as the archive warning would imply, but it's best to know.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, this has been a rollercoaster of a past two days. And as such, I am comforting myself with soymilk. Plenty of both angst and fluff to satisfy any palate.
> 
> *Rating for mentions of blood, death, war and injury.

Sorey was in a twilight world.   A purple-stained sky wheeled overhead, dark and unpierced by the light of the stars.  A powerful malevolence weighed down on his chest that made his heart beat fast and his stomach roil.  He glanced to the side, looking for Mikleo, to check that he was okay.  There was no one there.

“Mikleo?” he called into the silence.  In response, the world blossomed into sound – yelling and the clashing of metal beat on his ears, but there was no familiar voice to respond to his call.  “Lailah?  Edna?”  He whipped about in a circle, looking for the source of the noises or any sign of his companions.  As he scanned his surroundings, corpses appeared at his feet, a circle of death that grew out toward the horizon in every direction as he watched, like a morbid field of flowers.  In the distance, cliffs sprang up and Sorey felt a spark of recognition.  This was Glaivend Basin.  There had been a war here.  People had fought, and died, and succumbed to malevolence here, and he _couldn’t find Mikleo_.

Before he could even think about doing it, he was running.  Hellions rose up on all sides and fell away as he passed.  He kept getting distracted by flashes of purple, but every time he looked it was only the ghostly light glinting against fallen weapons and armor, or dying pools of blood mauve.  He ran and ran, calling for Mikleo until his lungs and throat screamed, stumbling across fallen spears and fallen soldiers at every turn.  Finally, he wasn’t able to keep himself up anymore.  The next time his boots caught on something hard, he went tumbling out across the ground, his white Shepherd’s cloak streaking crimson and brown as he rolled across the dirty battlefield.

When Sorey came to a stop, he pulled himself onto his knees with a groan.  He was backed up against a cliff.  No more places to run, no more places to search.  He recognized it, too.  This was the last place he had seen Mikleo, before Heldalf’s domain had shattered his own so completely, leaving him alone and lost for the first time in his life.

He tried to call for Mikleo one more time, but it came out somewhere between a cough and a sob.  Then, as if by a miracle, there was a voice whispering his name in his ear.  He could feel a pair of hands slide into his hair, and he clapped his own to the top of his head to catch them, to hold them there.  He touched nothing but air.  “Mikleo, where are you?”

“Hey, I’m here.  Come on, wake up for me Sorey, you’re dreaming.”

He did his best to nod and follow that voice, those hands, out of the darkness his own subconscious had built.  There.  He blinked twice and the world came into focus.  Mikleo was kneeling beside his bed in the Tintagel ruins, face bathed in the golden glow of a dimmed lantern.  Those hands in his hair, cool and gentle and so wonderfully real, moved down to his checks to wipe away the tears Sorey hadn’t even realized were leaking from his eyes.

“You were crying in your sleep,” Mikleo whispered.  In the light of day, this might have been occasion for teasing, but not now.

Sorey’s breath hitched and he threw himself forward to bury his face in Mikleo’s chest.  His hands clutched at the tails of his cape.  “You were gone.  I was back in Glaivend Basin and I couldn’t find you.”

“H-hey!  You’re going to fall off the bed and wake everyone up like that.”  Mikleo had gone stiff in reaction to the sudden attack, but he relaxed again.  One hand returned to Sorey’s hair while the other stroked his back.  “Come on, let’s go outside.”

Sorey nodded.  The air in the room felt thick with the remnants of his dream.  He was also reminded of the fact that they were not alone.  Rose and the other Sparrowfeathers – or Scattered Bones? – were still asleep in the beds around him.  He got up, somewhat unsteadily, and let Mikleo take some of his weight when he wrapped an arm around his waist.  They snatched up the lantern on the way out and made their way into the night.

Mikleo found a promising looking remnant of a wall with grass growing at its base and lowered them to the ground.  Sorey refused to let go of his hand.  He slumped back at the wall and breathed in the warm night air with relief.  There were still no stars above them, but the rustle of the trees in the breeze reminded him that they were out there somewhere, just past his vision.

“Sorey, look at me,” Mikleo said after a few moments.  He did.  The under-lighting from the lantern cast strange shadows up his face, but his hair stood out in the dark like the moon brought to earth.  Sorey knew that was the kind of line which would get him scoffed at if he said it aloud, so he kept quiet.  “I am right here.  I am not going anywhere.  I am not going to leave you.”

Sorey nodded.  Those words were like a balm, but it was impossible to ignore the way his heart was still beating fast and his clothes were soaked with sweat.  He grunted in annoyance and shucked off the outer shirt at least.  He let his eyes drift back out toward the darkened forest; everything was wavering shapes beyond their small bubble of light.  “I know.  It was just a bad dream.”

Mikleo was not impressed.  Sorey felt fingers on his chin, and then his face was being turned back.  There was something flaring in the depths of those violet eyes, and his mouth was quirked into a worried frown.  “Even if it was a dream, you’re still hurting.  We’ve talked about this before; please don’t try to shoulder this burden alone.  I am here to help you carry it.  And I will do whatever it takes to stay by your side.” 

The hand on Sorey’s chin slid up to cup his cheek, and he covered it with his own, finally feeling his heart start to slow.  Mikleo was not prone to such declarations of his emotions, and Sorey wanted to respond in kind.  “I love you so much,” he said, shifting his head so he could place a kiss on Mikleo’s palm.  He enjoyed the resulting blush.  Then he leaned forward to press a kiss to Mikleo’s lips.  It was just the lightest brush, but he allowed it to linger, a hundred unspoken words in that gesture alone.  “Thank you.  For waking me up.  For being here.  I will try to be better about telling you when something is wrong, but you’re probably going to have to remind me.”

There was that characteristic smirk.  “Well of course.  I couldn’t expect someone as stubborn as you to change overnight.”

“Hey!  You’re just as stubborn.”  Sorey let out a laugh.  Even if it was still a bit shaky, he exhaled the last of his anxiety with it.

“Normally, I would refute that, but you’ve had a tough night.  I can let you win this once.  Now, tell me, what can I do to help?”

Sorey thought for a moment about this, and realized that he was never going to get back to sleep if he wasn’t able to touch Mikleo.  The beds inside were too small to fit two people, and maybe that had been part of the problem.  “I want to stay out here with you.”

“Okay,” Mikleo murmured.  They were still close enough that his breath ghosted across Sorey’s mouth.  “Come and lay down, then.  You should get some rest.”  He guided Sorey down to lie with his head on his lap.

“If you insist.”  Sorey reached out for Mikleo’s hand again, twining their fingers together and holding them over his heart.  He could feel his eyes starting to close.

“What’s this?”

He blinked his eyes open again.  Mikleo was looking down at him still, but this time with worry.  “What’s what?”  He thought they had figured everything out, well enough for tonight at least.

“This.” Mikleo trailed fingers along his forearm, and Sorey squished his chin into his chest so he could see what Mikleo was talking about.  The flickering lantern light threw into relief the raised scar, which was still slightly pink.

“I think that was from a pike.  Or maybe an arrow?  It was hard to keep track of everything going on in the battle.  You healed it when we armatized.  Do you not remember?”

Mikleo shook his head.  “I guess I couldn’t keep track of everything either.  But I can’t believe I did such a shoddy job.”  He laid his palm flat, covering the scar, and let blue light rise.  “There, that should do it.”  But when he lifted his hand, the scar was still there.  It looked less angry and fresh, but it had not gone away.  Mikleo’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“It’s a scar.  It’s already healed.  You’ve done a fine job.”

“But you’re not supposed to scar.”

Sorey sighed.  He had no idea where that idea had come from.  “Now who isn’t thinking logically?  It was a big wound, part way into the muscle at least.  I’m surprised it didn’t scar even more than this.”

Mikleo hummed, still not entirely satisfied with that answer.  And then he said, “Wait, I know you took other wounds.  Does that mean you have others like this?”

“At least a couple, yeah.”

Suddenly, there were hands on his shoulders, lifting him up to sitting.  “Off.”  Mikleo peeled the undershirt away from his back and sucked in a breath.

“I guess I need to work more on my defense, huh.”

“This isn’t funny.”

Cool hands pressed to his back.  Out of the corner of his eye, he could see blue light rise around his shoulders.  Sorey twisted around so that he could grab Mikleo’s wrists.  “What are you doing?”

“It won’t go away.  Why can’t I heal you?”  Mikleo’s voice wavered on the last word.  His eyes were glazing with wetness.

“Ah, hey, don’t cry,” Sorey told him, turning all the way around so they were face to face again and gathering Mikleo into a hug, their roles suddenly reversed.  “I told you, they’re scars.  I’m healthy and healed.  It’s okay.”

Mikleo shook his head against Sorey’s chest.  “Any of those could have been your life, and I couldn’t protect you.  I said all of those things about not leaving, but how can I make sure we don’t get separated again if I can’t even protect you when you can see me?”

Sorey felt as if someone was trying to wring out his heart.  Mikleo had been hurt just as much by their separation, and he had held it together for Sorey.  Had intended to keep holding it together indefinitely.  Was this how he had felt earlier when Sorey wouldn’t open up about his own fears?  It seemed they still had some work to do to make sure they were communicating well and adjusting to their rapidly changing lives.

“I trust that you will protect me, and I will protect you.  It’s what we’ve always done.  I’m not planning on dying any time soon.  And if I’m going to share my burden, that doesn’t mean you can just go on carrying your own alone either.”

Mikleo pulled away, using one hand to swipe at his eyes.  The other he held out in a fist.  “I suppose that’s only fair.  Deal?”

Sorey touched their wrists together.  “Deal.  Now it’s your turn.  What can I do to help?”

“I wish there was some way I wouldn’t see those scars as a failure.”

“Oh, well that’s easy!”

“It is?”  Mikleo sounded skeptical, and his face reflected that.

“Yeah, because I kind of like them,” Sorey said, letting his enthusiasm seep through.  He hoped it would be catching.

“And just why do you like your scars?”

“Well, they’re like history.  It’s as if someone wrote the story of everything we have faced into my skin.  Or a map!  See,” he paused to take Mikleo’s hand and uncurl his fingers which were still rounded into a loose fist.  He guided them at the top of a new scar on his ribs and then down along it.  “It’s like mountains, and plains,” their hands glided together across unmarred skin toward his chest, “and rivers.”  This time they barely brushed one that had formed into a dip near his sternum.  Sorey took his hand away, hoping that Mikleo would get the idea and continue the exploration on his own.  He did, working his way up to a scar that just crested the top of Sorey’s shoulder, and then slid his palm down Sorey’s arm to cover the original offending scar on his forearm again.

When Mikleo’s hand got close enough, Sorey grabbed it in his own again.  “Even more than all of that, it is a record of all the times you _have_ saved me.  Every one of these, you healed with your own hands.  If that’s not a form of protecting me, I don’t know what is.”

Mikleo sighed, managing to both convey relief and disbelief at Sorey’s ability to turn any situation into a positive.  “Well, if you put it that way…” He was trying for haughty, but it came out far too gentle for that, and his soft eyes would have betrayed him even if his tone didn’t.

Sorey laughed and couldn’t resist pulling him in for another hug.  “I think after all of this, both of us could use the sleep.  Lie down with me?”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Sorey pulled on his undershirt again and folded up the outer for a pillow.  Then they both lowered themselves to the grass.  He guided Mikleo’s head to rest on his chest and draped an arm around his back.  Their feet tangled together.  Neither had to worry about any more bad dreams that night. **  
**


End file.
